Finally-A man who is a slave to my breasts

[Baltoman]

Of course there is always another side to the coin. My H is doing a lot of work to make up for my maternity leave, he is gone a lot, leaves the house dressed for work and such and I feel weirdly lonely and abandoned. I told him so. I also told him that I appreciate all his hard work. He says he feels lonely too. I wish that our conversations ever made it past this point to new actions/interactions. I liked your list on another thread - I alternate between quite a few of those less attractive choices - moping, hiding, whining blah, blah, blah.... Just depends.

Karen

Karen, the loneliness is understandable but for both of your sake's be proactive about it. I also have 4 children although we had them in a bit over 5 years. Needless to say money was very tight and I worked very hard. Money issues always stressed my W out. Me, I've always been laid back about it (sometimes too laid back). I figured, hell, I can always make more money tomorrow. Anyway, a decade later my wife still resents all the times I worked 14 hours a day and wasn't there when she needed a break from the kids. The logical man's mind in me says "Hey, you cannot be upset about not having enough and then get upset about how I go about fixing that", but I do understand her perspective.

Is there anything that can be cut back so you could have more time together? Trust me, he doesn't want to miss out on the kids because he is working too hard any more than you want to feel like the kids are all you deal with. Sometimes I think we have so dramatically increased what we define as a minimally acceptable level of monetary success in our culture that we miss out on the important things in the quest to have 3 cars, 800 channels on the TV, cell phones and ipods for the whole family, etc. Consider what it would take to be able to cut back on work, even if just a little bit.